There's not much to see that's different from the past set of pics. Things are recovering slowly and sometimes growing then dying back again and growing again. I have a hard time not letting my curiosity get the better of me and trying things I've never done before. Sometimes that results in something cool or a deeper understanding of process, but other times it results in widespread death and mayhem. This was one of the latter cases, unfortunately.

I've got some cool things in the pipe here at work that may have application to planted tanks. I may be giving those a try to see how they work under these conditions. This *is* a test tank (too) after all.

With Christmas just around the corner I'll be getting $$ to finalize the filtration and buy the vast quantity of certain plants that I've wanted for the setup. Look for major changes around the start of the year. Until then I'm going to let things sit and try to be happy again.

I've got some cool things in the pipe here at work that may have application to planted tanks. I may be giving those a try to see how they work under these conditions. This *is* a test tank (too) after all.

Do you get to write off some/all tank expenses (electricity/water, $ spent on equipment/flora/etc) for work since you guinea-pig some of their stuff?

Yes and no. I have free access to any hardware we have in storage and get anything we make for free. If there's something I want outside of that then I pay for it myself, but I can get it at our cost through businesses we have relationships with. I'm on a well so water's free. Electricity on the other hand…that's all me.

I figured it was time to post some sort of update on the tank as it's been a while. I filled it halfway and let a VorTech MP40 go hog wild circulating the water for half a day this past weekend. I did this for a couple reasons: 1) loosen up any dead stems and get them out of the tank, and 2) try to get any excess fertilizers out of the substrate and into the water where I could drain them. After cleaning things up I drained as much water as possible, pulled up some plants and replanted others. Even though the stems and leaves look terrible or are full out dead, the roots I saw looked great!

After all that I put filled the tank up to 1/2" from the substrate's surface (roughly) with fresh, lightly fertilized, water and re-covered the tank. I pulled out the downdraft elbows to allow better air flow from the heater and pulled a piece of tape off one of the bulkeads to let some air circulate.

Half a week later things are starting to look better and some of the plants I didn't mess with, particularly the H. pinnatifida, seem to be a lot happier. I'm seeing a lot of new growth and less burning of leaves/leaf tips than I did before.

I've been talking with friends on another forum about possible reasons the plants haven't done so well even this long after the Fe and K overdose. We've narrowed our guesses down to low humidity and low temperatures. I've got a box of new plants coming in soon that will be going in here. We'll see if the changes I made keep these new plants alive and happy.

Things are improving quite a bit since starting the weekly drain/refill and keeping the water 1/2-3/4 inch below the substrate surface. I've also started adding twice the fertilizer as before. It's still difficult to get pictures of the new little growth, it's definitely there and I'm seeing an improvement in health as well.

Once the roads clear up a little more I'll be heading to the store to get a humidifier to toss in here. The plants are still having issues with cooler temps and lower humidity. Hopefully adding a warm mist humidifier will help alleviate those problems and encourage faster growth.

I've also recently set up a 60 gallon full of water to help tide me over until I can get the filter set up for this guy. Having the other tank to play with means I'll be able to let this one grow out more than I'd thought. This guy may go back to the original concept of fully planting and scaping then letting everything grow emergent for a while before flooding. I think it would be cool to see how things respond to that treatment vs. the traditional planting of cutting without roots and flooding right away.

I added a warm mist humidifier to the system a few weeks ago and have seen noticeable improvement in the health and growth of everything in there. Some patches which were previously bare have new stems coming up from roots and nodes previously buried, and everything that had a bit of stem or leaves on the surface is putting out new growth. I also put some moss and ferns in cracks or directly on the walls and it seems everything is happy. I'll be getting an order with a bunch of emergent grown stems, some submersed grown stems that I think will transition ok, and some A. nana and Windelov Java Fern. Once I get all that planted I'll take some update photos.

I just got the box of plants today. About half of the 18x12x6 box is going into the 60 gallon flooded with the rest being destined for this big guy. That's 15 A. barteri v. nana and 15 bunches of M. pteropus 'Windelov'.

It's amazing how massive tht tank is. I know from experience that there is a ton of plants in there and even completely filled, they'll need to grow in for it to look full. Tank is looking awesome by the way. You are gonna have quite te setup my friend.

Thanks for the kind words folks. It's much appreciated. We're all here to learn and well, if nobody ever posts the bad and how it got fixed, we wouldn't learn as much, no?

Tom,
I've used A. nana 'Petite' in smaller tanks (225 and 75 gallons) in the past with great success and will be using it in the 60 gallon when the time comes. Given the size of this tank and the area of the wall to cover, I don't think regular A. nana will cause optical issues. 36" front-to-back depth will go a long way toward achieving a sense of large scale and depth. Plus, I'm going for a more old school feel and well, it's cheaper to cover 6 square feet with regular A. nana than with A. nana 'Petite'.

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